Fiber optic connectors of a wide variety of designs have been employed to terminate optical fiber cables and to facilitate connection of the cables to other cables or other optical fiber transmission devices. A typical fiber optic connector includes a ferrule which mounts and centers an optical fiber or fibers within the connector. The ferrule may be fabricated of such material as ceramic. A ferrule holder or other housing component of the connector embraces the ferrule and may be fabricated of such material as molded plastic. A spring may be disposed within the housing or ferrule holder such that the ferrule is yieldably biased forwardly for engaging another fiber-mounting ferrule of a mating connecting device.
A pair of fiber optic connectors or a connector and another optical fiber transmission device often are mated in an adapter which centers the fibers to provide low insertion losses. The adapter couples the connectors together so that their encapsulated fibers connect end-to-end. The adapter may be an in-line component, or the adapter can be designed for mounting in an opening in a panel, backplane, circuit board or the like.
Various problems continue to be encountered in designing fiber optic connector assemblies or other connector assemblies, including applications involving backplanes, motherboards, daughterboards and the like. For instance, a plurality of fiber optic connector modules which are terminated to a respective plurality of fiber optic cables or ribbons often are assembled into the rear of a connector housing, adapter, or the like. The modules have ferrules at the front ends thereof which terminate the individual fibers of the fiber optic cables, with mating faces of the ferrules being exposed at the front end of a connector housing, adapter or the like. Problems continue to be encountered in assembling the modules by an operator. Particularly, it is difficult to manually manipulate the modules into their respective positions at the back end of the connector housing or an adapter. The delicate fiber optic cables often are damaged during such assembly operations. The present invention is directed to solving these problems by providing an extender system which makes it easier to assemble such fiber optic connector modules without damaging the terminated fiber optic cables or ribbons.